“Look like th’innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t” (Act 1. SC. 6. 75). In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare we get to see many changes in lots of people. One in particular that stood out the most was Lady Macbeth. She gradually changed from being super masculine to being timid and scared. She lets her guilt catch up to her which ultimately leads to her downfall and death. She is one of the reasons Macbeth died as well. She was the devil on his shoulder the entire play. This is what Shakespeare wanted to portray her as. He wanted to show her progression into becoming the ultimate downfall and lead to death of both her and her partner. In the beginning of the play, we get to see Lady Macbeth as a masculine, manipulative, and cocky person. She is also the one who is telling Macbeth who to kill and how. Lady Macbeth wishes she would be a man so she whould have the strength kill King Duncan. We can see this when she says “Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to …show more content…
She has descended into madness and despair, unable to cope with the guilt built up from her and Macbeth actions taken earlier in the play. In the end she ultimately takes her own life, a victim of the very ambition and desire for power and wealth. Her death is a powerful reminder of the consequences of unchecked ambition and the danger of ingnoring one’s conscience. We can see in this quote when she descended into her craziness, “Out, damned spot, out, I say! One. Two. Why then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” (Act 5. S.C. 1. 37). This depicts how she descened into her madness. She recalls all of her killings and how the blood was never washed away and how it had stained her hands blood
She is an ambitious and power-hungry character. She is initially portrayed as a "monster," as she was the one who came up with the murderous plot against King Duncan. She takes these actions because, from her perspective, they are the only means by which she can increase her power. She subsequently reacts when she believes there is a possibility for her and her husband, Macbeth, to gain more power because her instincts and ambition are intertwined. Although her instincts have so much power over her that she is unaware that what she is doing is wrong, she shows no remorse for her actions until she is later driven insane with guilt.
She’s more of the brains behind the plan to kill King Duncan rather than the actual murderer. In Act 1: Scene 5, she receives the letter from Macbeth and she says “Yet I do fear thy nature; It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness”, she knows that he will end up not wanting to go through with their plan. Although he could have said no she still pushed him to proceed. Maybe if Macbeth would’ve put his foot down instead of cowering down and doing whatever Lady Macbeth said, he wouldn’t be in the predicament of having to kill his friends that he is in now. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are much like Adam and Eve.
By questioning Macbeth's masculinity Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth into committing deeds such as killing King Duncan. Lady
A little water clears us of this deed./ How easy is it, then! Your constancy/ Hath left you unattended” (2,2, 82-87). Lady Macbeth now has metaphorical and physical blood on her hands. Originally, she just knew about the murder of Duncan, but actively assisting Macbeth and encouraging it, makes her just as guilty. Her morals and ethics have now been forever tainted by the crimes that she and Macbeth have done.
She had conceived the idea of implementing this crime, relentlessly teased her husband for feeling guilty for taking part, and showed no sign of remorse for taking the king’s life. I like to assume that she is the principal antagonist in Macbeth. Macbeth was the one who physically stabbed
At first, rather than putting all the blame on Macbeth she is proud of her involvement in the murder stating: “My hands are of your colour but I shame to wear a heart so white.” Initially this villainizes her as she is in control rather than being an obedient wife going against Jacobean stereotypes
Lady Macbeth is one of the most complex characters in Shakespeare's play "Macbeth". She is portrayed as a powerful and ambitious woman who plays an important role in driving her husband Macbeth to his own quest for power. Lady Macbeth is determined to become queen and uses manipulative tactics to commit murder. Lady Macbeth's desire to become "unsexed" is an example of how she defies the gender roles of her society. By asking the spirits to remove her feminine features, Lady Macbeth rejects the traditional expectations of women in her society, which were to be passive, nurturing, and maternal.
Lady Macbeth is convinced to rid her self of anything feminine and be fierce like a man. While plotting against Duncan, Lady Macbeth
William Shakespeare portrayed the character Lady Macbeth to be extremely ruthless, malicious and manipulative. Thus, being the reason she could easily convince Macbeth to do her will, yet still put on such a convincing performance in front of those who knew nothing of her and her husband’s actions. Lady Macbeth shows her complexity constantly throughout the story when she shares her view-point on masculinity by demasculinizing her own husband, when she strategically plans the murder of the King Duncan, and finally when she finally goes crazy because of the guilt she possesses for not only her own actions but also turning her own husband into a
the woman who had the world turn against her. She was one of the catalyst’s for Macbeth’s killing of Duncan. She longed to be the wife of a King... Queen, but knowing her husband she realized it would never happen without some persuasion. So she basically bullied Macbeth into it. What she saw as an achievement at the time actually turned out to be a curse.
“Come, you spirits, That tend on mortal thoughts,/unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of dire cruelty” (1.5.41-44). Lady Macbeth is the personification of male dominance, ruthlessness and violence. She hopes that she could take control of all action. She yearns to be a man and her implication is that she is more masculine than Macbeth. Her drive and violent nature is more akin to men and their masculinity.
As soon as she heard Macbeth’s prophecy, she was willing to do anything to get him into the position of king. She was even willing to aid in the murder of innocent people who stood in the way of Macbeth’s ascension to the crown like, King Duncan. Her greed led to Macbeth’s downfall. When Macbeth stated that he was questioning his intentions to kill the king, she pushed him and assisted in the plotting. “We will proceed no further in this business. /
To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue; look like th ' innocent flower, But be the serpent under 't” (1.5.73-78). Lady macbeth was telling this to her husband, describing the way he should act when receiving King Duncan. Lady Macbeth was an expert on plotting murders, that 's why she was known as a ruthless with ambition, but eventually at the end of the literature she fails the case of being hard and heartless. She had so many murder cases that the murders would appear in ghost mode and would haunt her anywhere she would go. There was days where she ended up talking to herself, after all she couldn 't handle it any longer, Lady Macbeth turn out committing a suicide.
She is a loyal though misguided wife, not without tenderness and not without conscience. Lady Macbeth’s willingness to sacrifice her femininity exposes her loyalty towards Macbeth. After reading the letter regarding the witch’s prophecies, she decides she must do whatever it take to make Macbeth King: Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty.
The change of Lady Macbeth is best seen in the way Ari Mattes’s review describes it stating , “About a third of the way through the film, she suddenly becomes a profoundly sympathetic character” (Mattes